CRISIS: Saeed Forced Medication Begins

On Thursday 20th February 2014, mental patient Saeed Dezfouli was held face down by seven nurses and a doctor, had his trousers removed and was injected with 150mg of Paliperidone as a new trial medicine by the Forensic Hospital, after twelve years of other forced medication.

He has collapsed in a cell and is now refusing all food, water and medicine in response. He said he: ‘felt crushed, detached from life, hopeless without a future and his life was ended’. He is expected to be removed to Prince of Wales Hospital within days, to be strapped to a bed and have drips inserted to keep him alive. This is a shameless example of the coercive culture of mental health in an $17 billion annual Health budget. He was causing no one any problem.

Earlier in the day psychiatrist Dr Rafe Pulley consulted with the Director of the Hospital Adrian Keller, and declared that injections were needed. They rejected an alternative plan with Health Department Mental Health Consumer Workers, agreed to by Saeed, without hearing it. A Supreme Court injunction preventing the forced treatment was lifted on January 17th. Lindsay J. supported an early review by the Mental Health Review Tribunal to direct the hospital to act for Saeed’s benefit. The hospital has now usurped that forthcoming review.

Over the previous twelve years despite being a gentle intelligent person he has been forcibly medicated and has suffered diabetes, high blood pressure, a heart condition, weight gain, loss of concentration and loss of sexual arousal as side effects. He did an act for which he would have received a four years sentence but is being tortured without end, to force him into submission.

Justice Action is applying for an urgent intervention by the Tribunal and the Minister of Mental Health Kevin Humphries.